> dang often says that he's concerned about protecting HN as a vessel. But he seems less concerned about the truthfulness of the contents of the vessel. So IMO, HN is less appropriate as a place for reasoned, free discussion, and more appropriate as a place to gauge the opinions of certain demographics.
>HN is less appropriate as a place for reasoned, free discussion, and more appropriate as a place to gauge the opinions of certain demographics.
has HN ever claimed to be a place for "free" discussion? I feel the sentiment of "free speech forums" was cracking at the seams some 18-20 years ago, and compeltely fell apart around 9-10 years ago.
If you want unfiltered opinions, you go to a place with minimal moderation. HN was never that.
> But he seems less concerned about the truthfulness of the contents of the vessel.
It puzzles me when people say such things. We don't have a truth meter [1]; how are we supposed to decide what's true vs. false? By definition, there's zero consensus on any contentious topic. Should we pick one view and impose it? Whose would that be? my own? Even if I thought I knew the truth about everything (and I am very far from feeling that way), I can tell you how well that would go over: everyone would hate it.
There's another level too: are we supposed to ban people for being wrong? Being wrong is part of finding out the truth; of being curious. No one makes it to the truth in a single jump, nor on their own. Obviously people need the freedom to be wrong about things.
And another level: HN is about intellectual curiosity and interesting conversation. Interesting conversation is not always a pure sequence of true statements. Curiosity wants to figure out the truth, of course—but optimizing for curiosity [2] is not the same thing as optimizing for truth. The latter would mean excluding speculation, for example. That would be less interesting!
When someone wants the mods to decide what is true and moderate by that, I can't fathom what they mean, unless they just want moderators to support whatever they agree with and ban whatever they disagree with. No one would put it that crudely, but no one has explained what else is being advocated. One needn't consider this for very long at the general level (i.e. the level of the entire community) to realize how it could never work.
The very people making this point about the "contents of the vessel" would be at each other's throats if one asked them to declare what the truth actually is, since the first thing they'd discover is they have wildly differing views of it. That's why this point can only be made, or agreed with, in the abstract. The moment you cross into claiming any specific truth about a contentious topic, others will immediately protest that it is not a truth at all and that the opposite is true.
Figuring out the truth is a social process—it happens by discourse, communication, exchange. This is everyone's job together, not some special power of the admins. The admins' job is to facilitate that process. This does not involve declaring what the truth is and imposing it on those who disagree, any more than it's a referee's job to decide which net the ball or the puck should go into.
> The admins' job is to facilitate that process. This does not involve declaring what the truth is and imposing it on those who disagree
I mean, you’ve detached comments from threads for “creating a risk for an inflammatory discussion” (paraphrase), without detaching the opposing view’s comments.
This might come from the good intention of keeping HNs spirit (“protecting the vessel”), but the net effect is still that you are picking sides / who’s voice gets to be heard. Either everyone gets detached or no one does, otherwise you do not get to lay a claim to neutrality.
The same happens with the rate limit crap. I’m pretty certain most people who get hit by it aren’t actually spamming or causing problems, they’re just telling facts or viewpoints that (a subsect of) HN is uneasy with.
I am very aware modding is mostly a thankless job with no reward, so I guess like in open source I don’t really get to complain unless I put up effort or money. So if you feel like ignoring me that would be completely fair.
you’ve detached comments from threads for “creating a risk for an inflammatory discussion” (paraphrase), without detaching the opposing view’s comments.
You should find some examples where the detaching went wrong, in your estimate. Usually things get detached not for creating a risk but actually starting an unrelated flamewar or innocent swerve to a topic not strongly related to the original comment which then consumes the subthread.
Those examples don't have to do with picking sides in an argument or making calls about that's true vs. false.
If users break the site guidelines, we moderate them regardless of which side they're on, whether the comment is true or false or we agree with it or not.
I remember the person I was responding to making a case that a continuous push for women in education was good, and me stating that for a long while now, men have actually been behind in education in both high school and university. You decided to cleave my comment from visibility but not theirs, for the reason I stated earlier.
Likewise as said earlier, I understand you have limited time and will. I understand having only X amount of those to spend on each decision. And with your experience, you probably have developed a good intuition for which comments need to be sussed out to preserve the peace. That’s honestly fine with me, just don’t make claims that a decision like that preserves a balanced view of a discussion. That’s where the rub lies for me.
> If users break the site guidelines
They’re written in such a way that any comment that does not sit well with the larger part of the community (or even just a thread) can be explained to violate the guidelines.
> I remember the person I was responding to making a case that a continuous push for women in education was good, and me stating that for a long while now, men have actually been behind in education in both high school and university. You decided to cleave my comment from visibility but not theirs, for the reason I stated earlier.
I believe you! but what I'm saying is that this had nothing to do with your particular view or with somehow endorsing the other comment as "true" and yours as "false". It would be interesting to take a look at the specific case if you can dig up the link.
> They’re written in such a way that any comment that does not sit well with the larger part of the community (or even just a thread) can be explained to violate the guidelines.
I'd say that's true up to about 30%. There's still a lot of bedrock there. That's on purpose—we want them to be general enough to apply to lots of situations, but not so vague as to apply arbitrarily to anything.
> dang often says that he's concerned about protecting HN as a vessel. But he seems less concerned about the truthfulness of the contents of the vessel. So IMO, HN is less appropriate as a place for reasoned, free discussion, and more appropriate as a place to gauge the opinions of certain demographics.